URBO KUNE

27. 11. 2015 - 18. 1. 2016

This exhibition presents an experimental project by students
of architecture who created a parallel membrane city, Urbo Kune, which is Esperanto
for “common city”. It is inspired by the idea of “composed urbanism” by Austrian
architecture theoretician Jan Tabor, whose project includes a number of
artists, theoreticians, philosophers, architects, and musicians. This city is
not designed based on regulations and typology, but rather is composed based on
scores, similarly to music.

This model of a subdivided utopic city reacts to the
challenge of how to utilize the Zbraslav quarry, over a kilometre in length,
once it has been closed. The quarry was subdivided into several slots of
various lengths, all with a width of 11 metres. Students then designed
residential neighbourhoods, educational and cultural buildings, gardens,
shopping centres, and cemeteries for the individual parts, as well as a diving
platform, a skate park, a hemp farm, a brewery, and a jail. The student model
was exhibited in Vienna, Bratislava, and other cities, and next year will
travel to Tokyo.

Participating students were from the Faculty of Architecture
of CTU Prague, from the studio of Petr Hájek and Jaroslav Hulín, and from the
Virtual Studio of Petr Hájek and Vít Halada at the Academy of Fine Arts and
Design in Bratislava. The design of the entire city has been documented in a
catalogue that is available for viewing at www.membranecity.eu

The exhibition also includes works by painter, graphic
artist, and illustrator Pavel Růta that were inspired by this fictional city.
His large canvases will be exhibited alongside the laid-out urban model.

The model of a utopic city also inspired a new novel by Miloše
Urban, Urbo Kune, which was published in October of this year by Argo Press.
The book launch included a musical performance by Kristýn Lhotáková (singing
and accordion) and Ladislav Soukup (double bass), who played a composition
entitled “Architectural Poem”, based on the motifs of the city of Urbo Kune.